Once you know you'll be making a listing presentation to an owner, do you also give your best to make sure you'll be the last agent to deliver the listing presentation, too? If not, you could be missing an important ingredient that will have you listing a greater amount of properties than you currently are.

Why is this so? Well, to explain this clearly, we first need to take a look at how the owners of properties often see things from their perspective during listing presentations.

First of all, if one agent or team of agents clearly outperforms the competition and delivers a much more effective presentation to the owners, they'll probably be the ones who will obtain the listing. But in this day and age of intense competition among agents, one agent completely blowing away the competition is very rare. Oftentimes the owners are simply left with choosing instead between two or more presentations that may be fairly close to each other in terms of how impressively they were perceived. The only real exception here would be if a highly successful agent was competing against other unsuccessful agents for a listing. In this situation the listing presentations are likely to be perceived as being dramatically different from each other by the owners.

Keeping this in mind, an owner who will be listing their property has already decided that they want to get it on the market soon. They want to make sure they choose the right brokerage company and agent to list it with, but they also know that the sooner they make the right decision in this arena, the closer they will be to eventually consummating a transaction.

As the owners sit through each listing presentation, depending on how many listing presentations there are, there is often a feeling building inside of them to want to be finished with evaluating the agents, and simply get their property on the market. Because of this, if you're the last agent making your listing presentation, you could be in the best position to walk out of your presentation with a signed listing.

As long as the owners are honorable and don't sign a listing agreement with anyone before they've sat through all the listing presentations, there is no way that agents making their presentations before the final one can possibly walk out of their meeting with a signed listing. The only agent who can do this is the one making their listing presentation after all the other agents are done.

So if your listing presentation is the last one, you can benefit from the owners' growing desire to get their property on the market by accommodating them right then and there when you complete your listing presentation. As long as your presentation is perceived by the owners as at least being comparable to your competitors' presentations, you may be able to persuade them to sign your listing agreement right at that moment. But if you have to wait for the owners to sit through more listing presentations after yours, they may have already selected their agent before you speak with them again. And keep in mind that the greater the number of agents they will still be meeting with after your presentation, the more your presentation may tend to fade from their memory.

With all of this in mind, there are some exceptions to bring to your attention where delivering your listing presentation last may not be as impactful as you'd like it to be:

For example, if the owners are a full-time real estate investment company, a large company with multiple divisions or locations, or a property management company, delivering your listing presentation last may not be as important under these circumstances. In these situations, oftentimes the listing agent has been selected before the listing presentations even begin, unbeknownst to the brokerage companies themselves. Internal agendas, past relationships with brokerage companies, and simply trying to protect one's own rear end in the corporate world all contribute to this. Any commercial agent with ten or more years of experience in the business will definitely know that this is true.

But in situations where the owners are a husband and wife, an individual, or a small group of entrepreneurial investors with one primary decision maker, you will be extremely well served in scheduling yourself as the last potential listing agent they will meet with. In these situations, you have a great opportunity to walk out the door with a signed listing agreement when utilizing your highly-effective power of persuasion.

Published: February 7, 2005

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